Maurice Gorham
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Maurice Anthony Coneys Gorham (1902 – 9 August 1975) was an Irish
journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
and broadcasting executive. After being educated in
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
at
Stonyhurst College Stonyhurst College is a co-educational Catholic Church, Roman Catholic independent school, adhering to the Society of Jesus, Jesuit tradition, on the Stonyhurst, Stonyhurst Estate, Lancashire, England. It occupies a Grade I listed building. Th ...
,
Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...
and later
Balliol College Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...
,
Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
, he began working as a journalist on the
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
local
newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...
''Westminster Guardian and Weekly Westminster'' after he graduated in 1923.


Career

Gorham worked in the London newspaper industry for three years, before in 1926 joining the staff of the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
's own
listings magazine A listings magazine is a magazine which is largely dedicated to information about the upcoming week's events such as broadcast programming, music, clubs, theatre and film information. The BBC's ''Radio Times'' was the world's first listings m ...
, the ''
Radio Times ''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...
''. In 1928 he was promoted to become the magazine's Art Editor, and then in 1933 became its general Editor, a post he was to occupy for eight years until 1941. In that year, he made the switch from broadcasting journalism to working in broadcasting proper when he was appointed as the Director of the BBC's North American Services. He returned to Europe in 1944 to serve as Director of the
BBC Allied Expeditionary Forces Programme The BBC Allied Expeditionary Forces Programme was a national radio station during World War II in the mid-1940s. History Overview Upon the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, the BBC had merged its two nationwide radio stations – t ...
- a radio service specially designed for the allied troops invading Europe after
D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...
. In that capacity, he worked closely with Major
Glenn Miller Alton Glen Miller (March 1, 1904 – December 15, 1944) was an American big band founder, owner, conductor, composer, arranger, trombone player and recording artist before and during World War II, when he was an officer in the United States Arm ...
and his Army Air Force Band. After the end of the war in 1945, he was appointed as the Director of the new
BBC Light Programme The BBC Light Programme was a national radio station which broadcast chiefly mainstream light entertainment and light music from 1945 until 1967, when it was replaced by BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 1. It opened on 29 July 1945, taking over the ...
; this appointment was only a brief one, however, for in the following year he was made the first post-war Director of the re-launched BBC Television Service, responsible for getting the young service back up and running after a seven-year break. However, disagreements with his superiors meant that this was also a brief appointment, and he resigned from the staff of the BBC after twenty-one years in 1947, returning to journalism. He went back home to Ireland, and in 1953 returned to broadcasting as the Director of
Radio Éireann Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...
. In September 1959 he left this position - his reasons for resigning were not disclosed, but it is widely believed that he disagreed strongly with the Government's plans for how to introduce a television service to the country, which was due to happen the following year. In his retirement he wrote a number of books on broadcasting, pubs and Ireland and Irish life. He died in
Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
on 9 August 1975."Maurice Gorham, 1902-1975, by Catherine Jennings"
Clifden and Connemara Heritage Society. Retrieved 2015-7-20.


Publications

*''Sound and Fury: Twenty-one Years in the B.B.C.'' (1948) *''Londoners'' (1951) *''Showmen and Suckers: An Excursion on the Crazy Fringe of the Entertainment World'' (1951) *''Forty Years of Irish Broadcasting'' (1967) *''Dublin From Old Photographs'' (1972) *''The Local'' (with Edward Ardizzone) (1939)


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gorham, Maurice 1902 births 1975 deaths BBC One controllers People educated at Stonyhurst College Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford